Sunday is a day for trying to make my gaming PC start booting again. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe I can procastinate, making a list of some smart and compulsive games reading I found this week for the RPS-readership’s delectation, and try my damn hardest not to include some pop song or another. Yes, I think I can.
- Crispy Gamer’s Critic In Exile columnist Scott Jones asks “Is It OK to Finally Admit That I Didn’t Really Like Fallout 3 All That Much?” Example quote: “I know of a least a half-dozen writers who included Fallout 3 in their top-10 lists who, I know for a fact, didn’t invest more than three or four hours in the game (if that), and still felt compelled to vote for Fallout 3 — let’s go ahead and say it — because it felt like the right thing to do.” Honestly, I’m astounded and really don’t know where to begin. Well, don’t know where to begin politely.
- At least some Critics know what they love. This is old, and not a PC Game, but so hilariously hyperbolic that I presumed that it was being sarcastic. The Sixth Axis on Metal Gear Solid 4: “To review such a game as Metal Gear Solid 4 is like commissioning a blind man to share his opinion on a beautiful oil painting painted by a true artist” (Via Elliot’s twiter)
- Hey – the games journalist union will be after CivIV/Spore designer Soren Johnson. You don’t understand how it work. Us lot ask questions, and you guys answer them. If you start asking questions too, it all falls apart. Anyway – he does a huge two part interview with the Civ4 ultramod Fall From Heaven guys. Part one here. Part two here.
- 1UP/EGM takeover by EGO Point/Counterpoint. Editorial Director Sam Kennedy explains what’s happened. Jeff Green takes Sam’s diplomatic statement to task. Probably the biggest games-related story we haven’t covered this week we didn’t cover. Really, it’s a case not having any specific insight or anything to say (bar – “good luck to everyone who lost their jobs and hope they land on their feet”), so we’ll leave it to EGM’s Jenn Franks to deliver a personal euology. Her “Companies make money on other people’s passion. Some people make a lot of money by overseeing entire sweatshops of passion. I am trying my fucking damnedest to not sound angry.” is terribly familiar to me.
- Tom Chick interviews Brendon Cheung, the man behind the much loved Gravity Bone. I’d have linked to it even if it hadn’t namechecked me, y’know?
- On a similar indie-stuff-we-covered-this-week note, here’s the Gamasutra postmortem of I Fell In Love With The Majesty Of Colours.
- Adventure Classic Gaming interview Ex-Lucasart chap Hal Barwood on his return to the Adventure with the forthcoming Mata Hari.
- And New Games Journalism dead. He was like a son to me.
- Alec crashed over last night, and opined that the Sound of Silver album would be about eight times better without New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down. Haven’t made my mind up myself.
Failed.
Related Stories:
yeah, but i’m always right, obviously.
Faelnor: Democratic readers votes for games of the year seem to bypass the most vocal thing you’re talking about. Which is what I’m talking about. EG’s readers game of the year was FO3.
(Of course, votes for games of the year only include votes *for*. It doesn’t matter if 75% of the people who’ve played a game hated it. If 25% loved it most, it’ll probably be game of the year)
Dhex: To be fair, I think he said he voted for it – not that he voted for it as No.1. If you’re doing a top 10, including Fallout 3 isn’t exactly the same thing. But I could be wrong and misremember it.
KG
Why are all these Lucusarts alumni coming out of the woodwork now?
It’s mostly just coincidence that so many of them had new titles in 2008 (Well, Telltale has some every year). You think it took them too long to make it on their own? Tim Schafer got around to starting his own company right after he left LucasArts, so he released Psychonauts a few years ago already, but most of the other alumni tried different things before following his path. You can read Bill Tiller’s excuse in this brand, new interview:
http://www.incgamers.com/Games/2334/interviews/167/Bill-Tiller-On-A-Vampyre-Story
Yeah that’s exactly it isn’t it. Also, I know these days gaming is more mainstream and huge titles like Halo have brought people into video games who wouldn’t be there otherwise and are a little disturbed by the breadth of things not-Halo/Mario that are called games. But geez, this guy’s supposed to be the editor of a games web site and the sight of a dialogue tree and talking NPCs just about knocks his baseball cap clear off his head. “Dude yur fagging up my shooting with talking n’ shit, WTF?”
It’s all happening a little to fast for this old fart.
“When it came time to cast my vote for Game of the Year a few weeks back, I spent a series of antacid-infused days wrestling with whether or not I had the stuff to go against the grain, to stand up to pitchfork- and fire-wielders, and be true to my heart. Mostly I wondered if I’d forsake the little credibility I have in this business by picking something other than Fallout 3.”
sounds like a straight up game of the year routine.
It would’ve all been fine if Scott Jones had done one of two things – either stood by his choice and sucked up his own cowardice, or wrote about how he made a mistake but that in the end it was his own mistake.
Now he makes it sound as if there’s some phantom force to blame, woe him, etc.